The present disclosure relates to an image forming apparatus and image formation system for assisting in a task in which a person confirming confirms a modified document.
In some instances a document that has been authored is viewed and examined (reviewed) by a plurality of confirmers (reviewers) such as supervisors. The confirmers handwrite a commentary (comments) on a printout of the document. Then, in some instances, the content of a document or places where modifications are needed are examined while the commentary from each of the confirmers is collected in a meeting or the like. The document is then modified on the basis of the examination results. In some instances, too, a plurality of confirmers are requested to examine a document, the document is received written over with commentary, and the document author modifies the document, referring to each confirmer's commentary written over the received document. There are known techniques for collecting such commentary from persons other than the document author, and facilitating the task of examining the document in a meeting or facilitating modification of the document.
For example, there is known a document review assistance apparatus including: a document management unit for managing an electronic document under review; a printing unit for printing the electronic document of the document management unit, at which time printing is carried out with information enabling identification of the electronic document having been added; a reading unit for converting a document to which a handwritten comment has been added into image information; a document recognition unit for extracting information for electronic document identification from the image information of the reading unit and identifying the corresponding electronic document of the document management unit; a comment extraction unit for comparing the image information of the corresponding electronic document identified by the document recognition unit and the image information of the reading unit, and extracting a comment by handwritten input and comment information including relational information about the comment and the corresponding electronic document; a comment management unit for managing the extracted comment; a document display unit for displaying together the corresponding electronic document of the document management unit and the comment of the comment management unit; and a comment input unit for inputting a comment to the electronic document being displayed on the document display unit.
The text is modified with reference to each confirmer's commentary and opinion. Then in some cases the confirmers confirm the modified document for whether or not the commented portions have been properly modified. In such a case, the confirmers receive a printout of the modified document, and confirm whether the places of their own commentary have been modified, edited, or the like.
At this time, the confirmers seek out portions (places modified by commentary) corresponding to commented places out of the printout of the modified document, while viewing the unmodified document over which the commentary was earlier written. When the unmodified document over which the commentary was earlier written is not at hand, it is necessary to work from memory in seeking out places modified by their own commentary from the modified document.
However, because modifications and editing are carried out in some instances the modified document may have different lines or a different number of pages from the unmodified document. For this reason, in some instances it is difficult to seek out portions where one had commented from the modified document. In particular in a case where the number of pages in the document spans several tens of pages or several hundred pages, it takes time and effort to seek out and find all places modified by one's own commentary from a modified document spanning a large number of pages. As such, a problem emerges in that it is difficult to readily carry out the task of confirming a modified document.
Here, according to the known art described above, it would be possible to combine the review results of a plurality of reviewers (confirmers). However, it is not possible to simplify the task of confirming a document that has been modified on the basis of the combined review results.